These are the inspirational words motorcyclist Dan Cannell recited to himself in hospital every day as he recovered from a horrific accident which nearly claimed his life.

And the 28-year-old’s determination means he has returned to work at Asda’s Magna Park depot just nine months after his bike and a van collided outside the Axe and Compass pub, near Wolvey, leaving him with serious head injuries, multiple broken bones and collapsed lungs.

Dan, of Walcote Close, Hinckley, was in a coma for 19 days after the accident.

By complete coincidence, a doctor was in the pub and performed an emergency tracheotomy on him at the roadside to re-inflate his lungs.

Doctors originally gave Dan little chance of recovery, but he returned home in November and went back to work on Monday, March 16.

Since leaving hospital he’s been re-learning things most people would take for granted, such as walking, balancing and tying his shoelaces.

Dan said: “It is difficult to say how well it is going when you have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis, but from what I’m told I’m doing remarkably well.

“I’ve been learning to walk, learning to tie my shoelaces again.

“Every day when I walk I have to learn about my lack of balance.

“There are lots of niggly issues, but they are my issues and something I have got to put up with, and I’m not going to inflict them on anyone else.

“I’m trying to learn to run again but the knee isn’t as strong as it should be. It’s still quite weak - the quad muscle is half as strong as it should be in the right leg.

“The doctor has told me it’s a case of years not days and months (to recover). “The only way I have been able to think about it, when I was in hospital, was something I recited to myself.

“It was, there are no ifs and buts, only ‘I will’.”

While he was in hospital, friends rallied round to organise a track day at Mallory Park to raise money for the Air Ambulance in Dan’s honour, as he was a popular racer in the Derby Phoenix and East Midlands Racing Association motorcycle championships.

Now another fundraiser has been lined up - a football match between a Leicester City Legends side and the Air Ambulance Racers at Hinckley United’s Greene King Stadium on Sunday March 29. Ali Mauchlen, Steve Walsh, Muzzy Izzet, Paul Ramsey, Martin Johnson, Gary Mills, Gary McAllister and Dean Thomas are among the stars who have signed up.